~ Flu news, Information, Prepardness

Daily Archives: May 24, 2009

May 24 (Bloomberg) — Australia’s swine flu cases increased to 16 after new infections were confirmed in its southern Victorian state, while South Korea, Japan and Hong Kong also added to their tolls.

Two more people were diagnosed with the virus in Victoria, Australia, the Herald Sun newspaper reported, citing state Health Minister Daniel Andrews. South Korea confirmed four more swine flu cases, increasing its total to 10; Hong Kong’s government confirmed two more cases, bringing the total number of infections in the city to six, and Japan confirmed a new case in the city of Osaka.

Confirmed swine flu cases globally total 12,022 in 43 countries, with 86 people killed by the virus, according to the World Health Organization’s latest tally. Still, the WHO said on May 22 the virus would need to be global and show significant harm to people before declaring a pandemic.

Australia’s government on May 22 updated its pandemic alert to “contain,” the third-highest level. The next level, “sustain,” means the virus is established and spreading.

An order for vaccines to protect the nation of 21 million people from the virus is “under active consideration,” the country’s health department said.

“We expect to have a number further confirmed later today,” Australian Health Minister Nicola Roxon said on Channel 9 before the new cases were announced. “It’s serious, but it’s not yet widespread.”

Confirmed Cases

A 15-year old schoolboy and a 27-year old man have been diagnosed with the virus in Melbourne, the Herald Sun newspaper reported. There are 11 confirmed human swine flu cases in Victoria state, the Herald Sun reported, with the other cases elsewhere in Australia.

Meanwhile a 12-year-old boy from Adelaide, South Australia state, whose sister and mother tested positive and whose own result was inconclusive, is to be treated as “clinically positive,” Australian Associated Press reported in an article carried on the Sydney Morning Herald’s Web site, citing the state’s chief medical officer.

Japan today confirmed the virus in a 19-year-old male in Osaka whose family member also has swine flu. That brings the total number of confirmed cases in that city to 112, and 334 nationwide, according to a statement from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare today.

[snip]

The Philippines today reported the nation’s second swine flu confirmed case in a 50-year old woman who recently returned from Chicago, state-run Xinhua News Agency said, citing a health official.

Five U.S. citizens and a Vietnamese are among the confirmed cases in South Korea, with the others being South Korean, the nation’s health ministry said.

[snip]

A 30-year-old Taiwanese woman and her five-year-old daughter who traveled in the Philippines for five days have tested positive for the virus in Taiwan, ABS-CBN news said on its Web site yesterday, citing Taiwan’s Center for Disease Control. The two are among four new cases of swine flu, which brings Taiwan’s total to six, it said.

Singapore had two additional swine flu cases for investigation, the city-state’s health ministry said on its Web site yesterday. Of the 42 cases investigated so far, 34 cases have tested negative for swine flu and 8 tested positive for the typical seasonal flu strains, according to the health ministry.

China has 7 confirmed cases of the H1N1 flu virus and one suspected case as of 12 p.m. today, according to a statement on the health ministry Web site.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Inching closer to a swine flu vaccine, the government is beginning to analyze two candidates for the key ingredient to brew one.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hopes to deliver one or both to vaccine manufacturers by the end of next week so scientists can begin the months-long process of producing shots.

Friday, the government set aside $1 billion for crucial testing of the first pilot doses and stockpiling of key vaccine ingredients – in case world health authorities decide that people indeed need to be vaccinated starting sometime next fall. The stockpile will allow for quick production of shots to protect health workers and other people at high-risk from flu.

Also on Friday, CDC scientists unveiled the most detailed genetic examination yet of the novel virus, finding that the new swine flu may have been circulating undetected in pigs for years.

That report, in the journal Science, still fails to solve the bigger mystery of when and where the virus made the jump to people and what genetic change allowed it to start spreading so rapidly. The virus was first detected last month, and at least 42 countries now have confirmed it in more than 11,000 people. At least 85 people have died from it.

The confirmed cases don’t represent anywhere near the full scope of the outbreak: For every reported case of swine flu, there may be 20 people sickened with it, said CDC’s Dr. Anne Schuchat – more than 100,000 people in the U.S. There are signs that it is declining in parts of the country, although school-related outbreaks in New York City and elsewhere have led to the closings of about 60 schools affecting 42,000 students, Schuchat said.

The candidate vaccine viruses the CDC has begun analyzing contain a mix of genes from the new swine flu virus itself with components of other viruses that allow them to grow better in the eggs that manufacturers use to produce vaccine. If one or both prove usable, manufacturers could begin producing pilot lots for testing this summer to see if the shots are safe, trigger immune protection and require one dose or two.

Mexico hasn’t had a new swine flu case in a week and is lowering its threat level. Oh boy, now we can forget about that cocktail of pig, bird and human genes and concentrate on Ms. California’s homophobic boobs. But, few of us lived through the 1918 pandemic where millions died in the second wave of the Spanish Flu virus. See, it comes on during the first flu season and then subsides, only to come back again the next year with full throttled vengeance. The history and issues, after the jump.

Flu’s genetic material is made up of just eight strands and only about 30 genes. Flu RNA is sub microscopic and much smaller than DNA or bacteria. It’s kind of like a half-step between a mere chemical compound (not alive?) and the 25000 genes in each of our cells (alive?). These flu genes invade the much larger cell and contain the instructions for making the virus’s simple components, including the capsule and surface markers, which our cells copy. The surface markers are what give the influenza its labels. The subtype for swine flu is H1N1. H stands for Haemagglutinin and N for Neuraminidase. This is the same subtype as the deadly Spanish flu of 1918.

Things worked more slowly in the early 20th century. It took about 15 years for researchers to understand what exactly had killed millions in 1918. The influenza A virus was first isolated in 1931 from swine and in 1933 from humans. The close relationship between the 1918 flu and today’s virus was reconfirmed recently by the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) in Maryland, from two sources: first, from stored specimens of 70 human autopsy cases of the 1918 flu pandemic and secondly, from a preserved bird from the 1915-1918 era stored at the Smithsonian. However, because the Smithsonian’s 1918 bird virus was genetically different than the 1930’s human and pig viruses, the AFIP believes that the 1918 virus was probably circulated among swine and/or humans for some period, undergoing genetic “drift”, before leading to widespread illness in 1918’s second seasonal disease wave. 1918 virus is likely to have reassorted, or mixed genetically for years in an intermediate host.

The same “mixing” for a decade is likely to have occurred with the current swine flu. Pigs have receptors for both human and bird flu viruses, which makes them ideal “mixing vessels” for new viral combinations. Bird flu is easily transmitted to pigs via their droppings. If a pig catches two kinds of flu at once, a new hybrid can emerge with genes from both viruses.